Phillips family has proud tradition of military service

November 4, 2013

Robert Phillips Jr., who spent 11 years in the Navy and 21 years with the Air Force Air Guard, got his interest in the military naturally - from his namesake father, who was also a Naval veteran.

But that's only the beginning, because his family's patriotic roots go back more than 100 years, he said, explaining that some relatives fought in the Civil War.

Article Photos

Submitted photoMilitary service runs deep in the Phillips family because members can trace their patriotic roots back more than 100 years. Perhaps not surprisingly, sons John and Mark decided to follow in the footsteps of their father, Robert Phillips Jr., by serving in the military. Here, family members are pictured after attending Mark Phillips’ graduation from bootcamp at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

"My family was definitely military, starting with my dad and then going back for several generations. I guess it would be fair to say it's in my blood," he said, adding that he'd moved many times during his childhood due to his father's military career to far-flung places like the Philippines, Okinawa and Hawaii.

"I just grew up in that life and it was definitely interesting, especially returning to some of those places as an adult and contrasting it with my childhood memories. In those days, wherever we hung our hat was home," Phillips said.

And not unlike his father, Phillips also made the military his career -including early time spent in Vietnam as a Navy seaman, as well as two deployments later on to the Middle East as part of the 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia AirNational Guard.

Although there was a short hiatus from the military, including a stint with the Smithsonian Institute, Phillips said he "just knew" when it was time to go back into the service. After enlisting with the Air Guard in 1984, where he began as an airman E-3, Phillips would eventually leave more than two decades later as a senior master sergeant E-8.

As a manager, he worked in the area of air medical evacuation which included operations such as ground hospital and air ambulance.

Although medical was new to him, that was also his choice because it was an opportunity to learn and grow.

"When we have those patients with us up in the air, we had to take care of them until we were down on the ground. Fortunately for the first and second Gulf War, most of that was taken care of by the Army. The combat surgical team would get them immediately and we would then keep them alive while sending them on to where they needed to go depending on the injuries," Phillips said.

His first deployment was in August 1990 when he was sent to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, for 31 days. It was not the best off conditions -he and others in his unit originally slept on equipment before later getting shelter in a school house - but that's not what mattered to him.

"We were trained and there to do a job for our country. And that's what matters," Phillips said.

Another 35-day gulf deployment began in February 2003, when Phillips was sent from Martinsburg to Bahrain as well as two places in Saudi Arabia - the Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj and Tabuk, which is located approximately 40 miles from the Red Sea, he said.

"We returned home and were still on active status for 96 days. Then we were issued orders on July 10, for another departure - essentially we were redeployed. That time it was for 120 days and we went to Baghdad International Airport," Phillips said.

"We would go to bed at night and watch the tracers flying - we used red, the opposition force used green. We'd wake up to machine gun fire with rockets and mortars landing in the area," he said.

He only left the Air Guard in 2005 after reaching an age when it was necessary to retire.

"Otherwise, I'd still be there and doing that kind of job," said Phillips, who was one of the first members of the West Virginia National Guard Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High-Yield Explosive Enhanced Response Force Package Team.

JOHN PHILLIPS

Although his father never directly urged either he or his brother to enter the military, John Phillips said he learned a lot from his father's experience and grew up admiring his devotion to his country.

As a result, it's not too surprising that he enlisted in the West Virginia Air National Guard in 1991 as a senior at Shepherd College and has now served for nearly 22 years - with no immediate plans to quit.

"Military service has always been a family theme. It is understood that service - to others and your country - is important," Phillips said.

Now a technical sergeant E-6, Phillips is at a middle management level and has been deployed a few times, he said.

His deployments include a brief stint in Turkey and a longer stint in the United Arab Emirates, followed by about a half year in Iraq from 2006-07.

Phillips said his primary duties center on military police/law enforcement activities, although he also leads the handling of weapons and firearms on the installation as well as supervising other firearms instructors. Those duties also include the repair, inspection and maintenance of all weapons on the base, he said.

As a result of his military police work, Phillips has performed this work locally as well as at other bases and large conferences for other national security organizations in locations such as Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

Still happy in this role, Phillips said it's hard after so long to remember the exact reason he chose to enlist in the National Guard.

But at that time, national and world events meant he had to "do more than just graduate college with a bachelor's degree."

"I was a senior and the world was wide open to me, but it was also right after Desert Shield and Desert Storm, so I just knew there was something else I was looking for - something else I was meant to be doing," Phillips said.

"Contributing is important to me and also to my whole family. I still enjoy my job and going to work, partly because I can feel good about what I'm doing, so this did turn out to be the right choice for me," he said.

MARK PHILLIPS

Since he moved here with his family in 1980, Mark Phillips considers the Eastern Panhandle home. A Musselman High and Shepherd University graduate, he joined the Army in November 2004 and served until October 2012.

Now employed as a long-term substitute with Jefferson County Schools, Phillips always felt good about his decision to be in the military.

"I just had a desire to give back because I felt I had taken so much and was having such a fine time in life. I just knew I had to give something back," he said.

Even choosing which branch to serve in wasn't a problem, according to Phillips.

"There were two wars going on and I definitely wanted to get overseas, so I thought the best chance for that was with the Army. Again, I think that was partially due to a sense of duty and also in terms of adventure," he said, adding that he'd graduated college and was 31 years old when he made this decision.

He graduated from bootcamp at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in 2005.

From 2007-08, Phillips was deployed to Iraq and he was ready to be sent to the Al-Anbar Province, which included the cities of Fallujah and Ramidi.

"You trust in the training given to you by the United States Army that you are prepared to do whatever job they ask of you," he said.

However, initially "it was confusing because it was like nothing that we would have imagined. And it's also something that never leaves you," Phillips said.

His nine-month stay in Iraq involved doing some of the most dangerous work associated with this type of deployment - clearing roads for improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

"Our unit was tasked with clearing roads of IEDs, so if any unit wanted to move anywhere we had to go first. So our daily routine was route clearing. It is an extremely dangerous job," he said.

Despite the danger, Phillips readily accepted this assignment and learned from it.

"Overall, it was a very enlightening experience. It was like the best of times and also the worst of times. At times, it was mind-numbingly boring but at other times it was amazingly fast paced," he said.

Now 40 years old, Phillips isn't sure the military would now take him back.

"But under the right circumstances, I would definitely serve again," he said, crediting his father and older brother for having been part of his military inspiration.

"They were both an inspiration for me to do this. I mean, people were being deployed multiple times - they had a wife and kids - but here I was and it took me two and one-half years of being in the military to get deployed. And that was true, even though I tried and tried to get deployed. I saw no reason why my brother - and father, of all people - should be deployed when at that same time I was single and without children," Phillips said.

Family and freedom are both worth fighting for, he said.

"The United States is still the greatest country on Earth because we have the capacity to change for the better - it's that simple," Phillips said.